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Both these onen passed their time in loud-sounding complaints ; they would have you know their voices at all hazards , and chose themes which permitted the loudest declamation . Still they differed : the one complained 'midst sobbing and lamentations that were to melt the world into sympathetic weeping fer-the sorrows of a wouldbe martyr ; the other complained with fretful laughter , not good honest mirth , but the malicious grinning of a fiend . We quote our author : —
" Voltaire passed jests on his maladies , even when real ; Rousseau would fain that the -whole human race should weep with him over his , even when , imaginary . Often , moreoverj they both make themselves ridiculous—the one by his seriousness about trifles , the other by his levity on the gravest subjects . But the latter , with his inexhaustible malice , is sometimes kindly ; the former , with his universal philanthropy , has always some gall in his ink , and sometimes a great deal . Even
when he is in the right , his tone is that of a sophist , rather than of a man who is himself convinced . Voltaire , even when in the wrong , is natural , and in some sort candid . You find him lie , and that often ; but he does not mix up with his lies fervent apostrophes to truth and virtue . He makes victims , and boasts of doing so ; Rousseau tries to make them , yet , to hear him speak , you would think there is no victim but himself . " "
Bacon said truly that " religion is the spice which keeps science from corrupting . " These men , however , dispense with the spice for all science , art , or literature , and the result was the uniyersal corruption to which they led the Prance of their philosophy . Eohespierre quoted " Emile " while ticking off the next day ' s list for the
guillotine , and the people who were exuberant in their indignation at the introduction of a catastrophe on the stage , and looked on Crehillon as one of the monsters of his own creation , would still flock to the Place de Grreye , where judicial sentences were carried out with all the atrocities of the most barbarous ages .
Shakspeare was a great nuisance to Voltaire , who felt all the petty jealousy of a fancied rivalry . At one time we find him sending to the Academy a translation of " Julius Caesar ; " and at another , when "Letourneur and other [ Frenchmen had been applauding the English poet , lie was amazed at their approbation of " this abominable
Shakspeare /? and forthwith takes up the cudgels for Racine , whilst complaint of historical inaccuracies in the Elizabethan dramatist sounds awkwardly from the man who fancied he had given the world Arabs in " Mahomet , " and Mussulmans and Christians in " Zaire ; " who talked about his good friends the Chinese till the King of Prussia asked him whether it was allowable to tell lies in order to effect
good ends . All was artificial : — ' " There was a divorce , " says our author , between nature and art . BufFon , even Baffon , with all his eloquence , has no sense of nature , and no love for it ; or
if he loved it , it was as one loves what he makes use of , as one becomes attached to that which he appropriates for his own ends . Buffon excelled in looking for himself in his grand pictures of the universe . Admire them you must ; but ask yourself then whom you have been admiring there , God or the author , and see whether it be not the author , and the author alone . How well did he select , in
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Untitled Article
Both these onen passed their time in loud-sounding complaints ; they would have you know their voices at all hazards , and chose themes which permitted the loudest declamation . Still they differed : the one complained 'midst sobbing and lamentations that were to melt the world into sympathetic weeping fer-the sorrows of a wouldbe martyr ; the other complained with fretful laughter , not good honest mirth , but the malicious grinning of a fiend . We quote our author : —
" Voltaire passed jests on his maladies , even when real ; Rousseau would fain that the -whole human race should weep with him over his , even when , imaginary . Often , moreoverj they both make themselves ridiculous—the one by his seriousness about trifles , the other by his levity on the gravest subjects . But the latter , with his inexhaustible malice , is sometimes kindly ; the former , with his universal philanthropy , has always some gall in his ink , and sometimes a great deal . Even
when he is in the right , his tone is that of a sophist , rather than of a man who is himself convinced . Voltaire , even when in the wrong , is natural , and in some sort candid . You find him lie , and that often ; but he does not mix up with his lies fervent apostrophes to truth and virtue . He makes victims , and boasts of doing so ; Rousseau tries to make them , yet , to hear him speak , you would think there is no victim but himself . " "
Bacon said truly that " religion is the spice which keeps science from corrupting . " These men , however , dispense with the spice for all science , art , or literature , and the result was the uniyersal corruption to which they led the Prance of their philosophy . Eohespierre quoted " Emile " while ticking off the next day ' s list for the
guillotine , and the people who were exuberant in their indignation at the introduction of a catastrophe on the stage , and looked on Crehillon as one of the monsters of his own creation , would still flock to the Place de Grreye , where judicial sentences were carried out with all the atrocities of the most barbarous ages .
Shakspeare was a great nuisance to Voltaire , who felt all the petty jealousy of a fancied rivalry . At one time we find him sending to the Academy a translation of " Julius Caesar ; " and at another , when "Letourneur and other [ Frenchmen had been applauding the English poet , lie was amazed at their approbation of " this abominable
Shakspeare /? and forthwith takes up the cudgels for Racine , whilst complaint of historical inaccuracies in the Elizabethan dramatist sounds awkwardly from the man who fancied he had given the world Arabs in " Mahomet , " and Mussulmans and Christians in " Zaire ; " who talked about his good friends the Chinese till the King of Prussia asked him whether it was allowable to tell lies in order to effect
good ends . All was artificial : — ' " There was a divorce , " says our author , between nature and art . BufFon , even Baffon , with all his eloquence , has no sense of nature , and no love for it ; or
if he loved it , it was as one loves what he makes use of , as one becomes attached to that which he appropriates for his own ends . Buffon excelled in looking for himself in his grand pictures of the universe . Admire them you must ; but ask yourself then whom you have been admiring there , God or the author , and see whether it be not the author , and the author alone . How well did he select , in